Re: Camera profiling
Re: Camera profiling
- Subject: Re: Camera profiling
- From: Mark Buckner <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 17:39:42 -0500
Joseph,
My apologies in advance for the fact that this is a bit disjointed. I've had
several interruptions as I tried to write this...
I see an recurring theme here where the issues of gray balance and camera
profiling are being lumped together erroneously.
>
So why profile any camera, why all you have
>
to do is gray balance. In addition, you do not need to color correct for
>
cast or contrast, etc.
I think this statement misses the point a bit and may lead some down the
wrong path. It is a well accepted fact that each camera behaves differently,
as CCDs vary from chip to chip. So, that's why we profile cameras. Please
note I said profile *cameras*. Not lighting sources or shooting conditions.
It's also why the custom profiles are far more valuable than the "canned"
variety. Let's say I want to shoot a car at sunset. If I create a profile at
sunset and the software linearizes the camera, my warm golden tones
reflected in the car are gone. Here is a situation where you do NOT want to
gray balance the camera. That would be like setting up for the same shot on
film and then taking a color meter reading and piling a bunch of blue
wratten filters on the lens to get it back to "daylight"... Defeats the
purpose, right?
>
This means you
>
can have 1 really great 5000K general profile for day or strobe (a tough
>
one). Or a specific profile for each environment (better).
Better in who's assessment? Kodak's? It may be a bit of an overstatement,
but I'm almost of the opinion that if Kodak advocates a strategy, I want
nothing to do with it. (Sorry in advance if someone out there reading this
is a Kodak rep or something!) All of this talk about Kodak software that
encourages you to shoot a Macbeth at the beginning of every shoot and build
another profile is scary. What's really scary is that a bunch of
photographers will buy into the concept, just because Kodak says this is the
way to do it. Why can't manufacturers just give us the raw data from the
camera and let us use the tools that are available to create and implement
the profiles, with out all the behind-the-scenes processing like the DCS
software or the Nikon in-camera sRGB-Adobe98 issue that has received so much
attention on this list of late.
>
So why do you profile your input devices. This is very straightforward:
>
You do so because you want to get the most out of your CCD. The camera
>
in the box is rarely at its best performance. You want to feel confidant
>
that you can expect X results. Because even though the output is going
>
to dispose of much of the color, you want the output to have the best
>
selection of color to choose from, resulting in a higher quality output.
>
Time, consistency, flexibility, production, saving money, etc.; you can
>
throw that stuff in there too.
On this I think we agree, except that those last few factors like time,
money, etc. deserve to be at the TOP of the list, not "thrown in". Time is
indeed money, as the old saying goes, and I for one am in this business to
earn a living, not just to explore the theoretical. You're right, if you
want to get the most out of the camera, you need to make a good *custom*
profile. I have such a profile for each of my cameras. I gray balance under
the lighting conditions (assuming it's a subject that I want reproduced
faithfully, (not something like the sunset scenario above). I get resulting
files that require almost no color correction, even to neutrals, and even
when shot under a variety of light sources (strobe, daylight, mercury/sodium
vapor, fluorescent, etc.)
Just as with film, the photographer needs to assume responsibility for
lighting and aesthetics. If I have some strobe heads that are off-color and
I use film, I'll see that impact on my chromes. If I use them with digital
capture and fail to gray balance, I'll see it there, too. If I desire for
aesthetic reasons to use a quarter CTO on a couple of heads and not on
others, that will show up on either medium, assuming I don't re-linearize
after adding the gels (or build another profile with the gels in place!)
I just think we need to separate all this talk about gray balance from the
concept of camera profiling. They are two distinct topics.
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